Banana-slice canes could vary a lot and still look like banana slices, so how much detail do you want? Real slices of banana vary a lot too. Banana cross-sections would somewhat like making other fruits/veggies that are long too since the "seeds" and other areas form in sections near the center.

Here's some stuff from my Miniatures page though, to give you some ideas though:

banana slice canes ... regular bananas seem to have 3 major divisions for their (non-viable) seeds--or areas that used-to-be seeds-- so making areas near the center which are slightly darker than the surrounding banana flesh would work; real banana slices vary a lot though in look, also by age and oxidation level... one could do this by inserting various odd-shaped logs into a log of background color...or by building a triangular log with the darker logs for seeds and other areas near the pointed end and/or radiating from it, then cutting the final cane into 3 parts and recombining them (kaleidoscope canes)... sometimes there are darker bits or streaks radiating from the center of a final slices as well... the circumference area of the banana (without skin) is a little uneven so could indent a bit with the side of a pin, etc.... (plaintain-type bananas have more pronounced seeds)...Angie Scarr's slices have very pronounced markings and include 6 med. brown seeds as well and the areas of translucent with creamy light yellow with translucenthttp://www.angiescarr.co.uk/1001_18.jpg.UK_Craft_Items_Canes_and_Slices.html...real banana slices: http://www.google.com/images?q=banana+slice

I'm more of a visual person, so I'm having slight difficulties wrapping my head around your tips

LOLOL... that's true for everyone!

I haven't made one a banana slice cane myself so I haven't worked out the exact shapes that would be used either, so that doesn't help. Now I've just taken a look at the slices you linked to as well as Angie's cane slices so there are a few things I could say about the shapes that make up the cane (see below).

First though, if you're not familiar with making a "kaleidoscope" cane, you should read about it and perhaps practice with a few colors of scrap clay to make a small cane just so you get the general idea.http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/canes--instructions.htm(...read the first parts under Symmetry & Repetition for some of the basics, but the specific type I'm referring to will be the ones created with Triangular Kaleidoscope canes)

Here are some lesson examples from that section which deal with triangular canes which are cut into 6 lengths then put together radially to form a "kaleidoscope" pattern (not put together in rows and/or columns, which can also be done)... creating a symmetrical triangular cane cut into 3 lengths though (then cut and recombined) would probably be easier for a banana slice cane:

...here our Gina builds a tringular cane using various pieces of other simple canes (so that the resulting pattern is symmetrical --and you'd want a symmetrical triangular cane too for the banana slice if you did it this way)...then she cuts that cane into 6 lengths and recombines them radially, in 3 different ways to create 3 different final patterns http://hometown.aol.com/fourleafcl1064/page126.html(btw, AOL's Hometown is shutting down so this lesson will be gone soon and put at a new location...ask beadzzygirl then)

OR, you can build a round or any-shape cane first then squeeze the various parts together into a triangular cane like these two lessons show:

...Carolyn builds a triangular cane too but it's not symmetrical in its center vertical area (tho it is symmetrical on each side)... then she cuts the cane into 6 lengths and recombines in 3 different patterns ......(in this case though, she may have used part of the cane to create a pattern from just 2 lengths which she combined, then cut that cane into 3 lengths for each final cane)... she's also rolled each of the 3 final hexagonal canes to round caneshttp://www.carolynsclaycreations.com/Tutorials.html (the very bottom of this page)

...here Donna Kato has built a kind of roundish-spiral cane (which is non-symmetrical btw) (fig. G) which she then squeezes into a triangular cane (fig. H)... she then cuts into 6 lengths and recombines radially into one pattern, leaving it hexagonal rather than rolling to round ... then cuts many slices from that cane and lays them on a base sheet in offset rows to form a nice complex pattern to cut out as a pendant (or cuts the hex. cane into lengths and recombines them into larger sections first)http://www.hgtv.com/cr-clay-jewelry/crazy-maze-cane-pendants/index.html

INSTEAD of making a kaleidoscope cane, you could just start with a short fat round log of banana color, then remove shaped parts from it, and replace them with other-colored logs or sheets (for the "seeds" and the darker colors, etc.). You can do this by using small cutters to remove the clay, or you can just push holes or shapes in the clay with a rod of some kind (if you do that, you'll distort the roundness of the cane, but since the background color goes all the way to the outer areas of the cane, you could at the end just remove clay from the outside of the cane till it was round again). After making the holes, put round or other shapes of "logs" down into the holes (cooling the cane first can help if you're using a sticky clay)...make those a little smaller (but longer) than they will end up being so that you can drop them down into the holes then press the excess clay into the hole to fill it up.

SHAPES

Banana slices appear to be divided into 3 identical sections (although distortion here isn't a problem since most banana slices don't seem exact), and each of those 3 sections has a symmetrical pattern. So if you were building a triangular cane, you'd want to create it to look like 1/3 of the banana slice... in other words, perhaps building it something like this --beginning from the widest part of the triangle and going up to the tip end (when viewed from what will be the end of the cane):

..lay down a thick rectangular slab of banana color ..lay log or triangular log of banana color on top of the slab (in the center)..lay a thin slab of darker banana color (or just translucent, which after baking will read as darker than the more opqaue banana color next ot it) over the log and down onto the first slab, but not all the way to the ends (creating the kind of V shape)...somewhere in the point of the V, put a tiny log comprised of dark brown...add a medium thickness slab layer of banana color over the whole triangular cane (just the two sides, not the bottom)...add a very thin layer of translucent over the whole triangular cane (just the two sides)

...then compress all the parts together, and cut the triangular cane into 3 lengths...recombine those 3 lengths radially so that the brown seed areas all fall in the middle of the final cane...compress, and roll to round...perhaps indent the outer parts of the cane so that the edges won't be quite smooth

(you could use various degrees of translucent mixed into the more opaque-colored parts too for visual complexity)

Haha Diane I probably understood your last idea the most! I really can't thank you enough for taking the time to help me. I hope it'll help others too, who are interested in bananas. Yum! I'll show you some pictures when I get it right!

I made some banana canes. I used Angie Scarr's instructions to make it. I seen it done several ways myself, and no way is wrong. Personally I made each section of the banana first and then put it together into a circular cane. It helps to draw a picture of how the cane is going to look first and look for a pattern. Then make one part of the pattern and put it together into one cane. I hope that is not too confusing..